Crysis® Maximum Edition

The arrival of Nvidia's RTX line of graphics cards may not have immediately ushered in a new era of games built around the concept of ray traced rendering but it has put the technique on the map, with results impressive enough to inspire developers to add ray traced effects to existing games - several of which do not actually require Nvidia hardware acceleration. We recently looked at a stunning path traced version of Minecraft, but what if RT techniques could be applied to all DirectX9 and DirectX11 games? And what happens if we apply that new technology to classic PC mangler, Crysis? Watch the video embedded on this page and you'll see that it works to a transformative degree - albeit with limitations.

It's all because of a new extension currently in development for the powerful post-process injection tool, Reshade, created by modding veteran and Nvidia Ancel contributor, Pascal Gilcher. Reshade works by hooking into DirectX, accessing the data contained in the depth and colour buffers to accomplish a range of post-process effects, including SMAA anti-aliasing, screen-space reflections, depth of field and colour tints to name but a few. A new ray tracing feature is now available in alpha builds - and strictly speaking, this adds a new layer of global illumination derived from path tracing. It's not a full fat implementation as we saw in Minecraft, but it can have a transformative effect - particularly on titles like the original Crysis, created at a time when the way games were lit was somewhat na ve compared to modern day implementations.

Crysis was a pioneer for screen-space ambient occlusion (SSAO) which uses data from the depth buffer to add shade to the nooks and crannies on-screen. The technique has evolved constantly over the last decade, but path traced global illumination can take this to the next level: Reshade beams out three rays per pixel in calculating shade and light bounce - giving a new layer of accuracy and depth to the way the scene is lit. Take a look at the video below and you'll see a number of A to B comparisons that reveal a stark difference.

Update: The original report was misleading - Crysis from Xbox Live Games on Demand does not require an always-on internet connection to play.

The lock-out timer described below only appears when playing Crysis on a second Xbox 360 console - a different machine than the one it was originally downloaded to. If the connection to the Live account drops, you'll need to recover the Gamertag within 10 minutes to resume gameplay.

Original, erroneous, story: You cannot play Crysis, bought from Xbox Games on Demand, offline.

The moment your connection drops, a 10-minute timer appears. That's the window you have to reconnect. Fail to do so and you're dumped back to the dashboard, reported MS Xbox World.

Presumably a similar always-on internet requirement will be present in the PSN version of Crysis, available today.

Crysis costs 1600 Microsoft Points on Xbox Games on Demand or £15.99 on PS3.

PC shooter Crysis fires onto the PlayStation Store this week. It's a polished port of the original's single-player campaign, available for £15.99.

Arcade slamdunker NBA Jam: On Fire Edition also courts your wallet this week, while new and free Portal 2 DLC continues the adventures of co-op robots P-Body and and Atlus in a new two-player test track.

There's still no sign of Mortal Kombat: Arcade Kollection - now over a month late - and Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, expected last week.

Co-op shooter Payday: The Heist is also missing after Sony issued a last-minute delay yesterday. Citing extra time was needed to ensure "overall game quality", Payday will now come later in the month.

Crysis launches on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on 4th October, EA has revealed.

That's a Tuesday, so for Europeans, the game will release on PSN a day later, on Wednesday, 5th October.

The game costs £15.99 or 1600 Microsoft Points.

Publisher EA has described the console download as a "modified and enhanced" version of the single-player campaign from 2007 game Crysis 1. It also features optimized Nanosuit controls, fine-tuned combat and full stereoscopic 3D support, all powered by CryEngine 3.

Eurogamer's Crysis review shot a 9/10. "This is a game that feels supremely engineered, like a precision machine, or a German automobile," Jim Rossignol wrote.

Publisher EA describes the console download as a "modified and enhanced" version of the single-player campaign from Crysis 1. It also features optimized Nanosuit controls, fine-tuned combat and full stereoscopic 3D support.

UPDATE 1:Crytek boss Cevat Yerli has confirmed that Crysis will launch as a PlayStation Network and Xbox Live title.

"For many years people were asking, can you do Crysis 1 on consoles?" he told GameTrailers. "We have been secretly working on that for a while. It's a digital download only. It looks just awesome, I believe."

ORIGINAL STORY: Sci-fi first-person shooter Crysis launches on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next month.

The game, which first launched on PC in 2007, is described as "remastered" in its debut GameTrailers exclusive video.

It has "all new lighting", "all new effects" and "all new Nanosuit controls".

Eurogamer's Crysis review shot a 9/10. "This is a game that feels supremely engineered, like a precision machine, or a German automobile," Jim Rossignol wrote.

Microsoft and Crytek discussed the possibility of the Crysis 2 developer going first-party just after the launch of Far Cry.

At the time, Crytek was about to create Crysis for PC. Microsoft corporate vice-president Phil Spencer told OXM it was decided the Xbox 360 manufacturer had enough shooters in a similar genre, so let the idea slide.

"The first time we met with [Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli] and the team was around seven or eight years ago, and we started talking about what it'd mean for them to become first-party," Spencer said.

"And it was a process of what do you guys want to do, what's unique for us, and they were just going to do Crysis, and they'd just come out of Far Cry, and we said we've probably got enough military future shooters, so go do that."

Crytek is currently hard at work on Xbox 360 exclusive, Kinect-fuelled first-person brawler Ryse.

"Then they came up with this idea around Ryse, and now they've really fallen in love with Kinect, and it's a perfect marriage for us," Spencer continued.